1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to electronic devices, including data processing systems and in particular to preventing unauthorized use of the electronic devices. More particularly, the present invention relates to providing automatic disabling of electronic devices if use of the device is unauthorized.
2. Description of the Related Art
For national security reasons, the United States limits export of high-technology content equipment to unfriendly nations. One reason for limiting the exports is that the equipment and/or its technological content may be used against the United States in the development and production of weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems for those weapons. Agents of friendly and unfriendly nations have at times conspired to circumvent laws of the United States to provide such equipment to unfriendly nations with some degree of success.
Today, we are usually limited by the ability of authorities to discover the theft of, or determine whether improper usage of, high-technology content equipment has occurred. The government of the United States has passed laws that generally add restrictions to sale of such equipment to friendly and unfriendly nations. Theft of such equipment is always a peril and law enforcement agencies are usually the most effective tool to recover that equipment. The above described methods have proven to be less than fool-proof because it is difficult to identify when, where and by what means the stolen equipment may be recovered or prevented from being used.
External to the borders of the United States and its territories, we are limited by laws of other nations, their treaties with the United States and the intentions of those in power at any given time. Often we are powerless to identify where equipment is, what the equipment is being used for and powerless to recover the equipment. Theft of highly portable electronic devices such as laptop computers and cell phones is a great problem. Theft deterrent is not often applied to these items because of cost and ignorance of the necessity of security. Unauthorized use of many computers may be limited by password protection or removable disk drives, but this provides a limited level of security and is easily thwarted by knowledgeable personnel.
It would be desirable therefore, to provide a method and apparatus that would automatically disable new or used high technology equipment that has gotten into the wrong hands. The method and apparatus would not require installation by the owner or user of the electronic device/equipment. Also, the method and apparatus should provide for subsequent disablement of stolen equipment if owners of the equipment changed from friendly to unfriendly. Further, it would be desirable to have the ability to apply the method and apparatus to a variety of devices including computers, cellular phones and weapons systems.